This time of year, global warming activists have another way to frighten the public – using steamy weather to suggest human greenhouse gas emissions are worsening a heat wave.

Stanford University professor Dr. Stephen Schneider told ABC’s “Good Morning America” June 9 that methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are making hot temperatures even hotter.

“While this heat wave like all other heat waves is made by Mother Nature, we've been fooling around by turning the knob and making a little bit hotter,” Schneider said. “[W]e’ve already increased by 35 percent the amount of carbon dioxide which traps heat. We've added 150 percent more methane, which also traps heat.”

Ironically, in 1971, Schneider co-authored a research article that explored both warming and cooling of the Earth, warning that a certain level of aerosols entering the atmosphere could trigger an ice age.

The heat that Schneider tied to greenhouse gas emissions resulted in some people being treated for heat stroke during a race, according to ABC weatherman Sam Champion.

“Now, people did try to get out in the heat over the weekend and a lot folks were out playing around in it,” Champion said. “But at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Washington, D.C., 34 people had to be pulled from the race to be treated for heat stroke.”

However, Dr. Roy Spencer, the principal research scientist for the University of Alabama at Huntsville, told the Business & Media Institute that making a connection between the East Coast heat wave and emissions was “too much.”

Image Courtesy of Dr. Roy Spencer

“This is the alarmists’ standard answer,” Spencer said. “But the area of unusually cool weather out West is much larger in extent than the area of warm weather in the east – an inconvenient truth, you might say.”

Spencer has been a vocal critic of climate change alarmism. He recently pointed out the double standard for scientists, comparing the obstacles he faced during the Clinton/Gore administration to those Dr. James Hansen claimed he faced during the Bush administration.

“I see that we are once again having to hear how NASA’s James Hansen was dissuaded from talking to the press on a few of the 1,400 media interviews he was involved in over the years,” Spencer wrote on his Web site. “Well, I had the same pressure as a NASA employee during the Clinton/Gore years, because NASA management and the Clinton/Gore administration knew that I was skeptical that mankind’s CO2 emissions were the main cause of global warming.

“I was even told not to give my views during congressional testimony, and so I purposely dodged a question, under oath, when it arose,” Spencer continued. “But I didn't complain about it like Hansen has. NASA is an executive branch agency and the President was, ultimately, my boss (and is, ultimately, Hansen's boss).”

Spencer eventually resigned from NASA and went to work for UAH.

“There were no hard feelings, and I’m still active in a NASA satellite mission and fully supportive of its Earth observation programs,” Spencer wrote. “In stark contrast, Jim Hansen said whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to the press and Congress during that time. He even campaigned for John Kerry, and received a $250,000 award from Theresa Heinz-Kerry's charitable foundation – two events he maintains are unrelated. If I had done anything like this when I worked at NASA, I would have been crucified under the Hatch Act. Does anyone besides me see a double standard here?”

Related Links:

A Special Report from BMI: Global Warming Censored

BMI's Special Report "Fire & Ice: Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can't decide weather we face an ice or warming"

Climate of Bias: BMI's page devoted entirely to global warming and climate change in the media.

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